Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows

First, a word about the timing of this post. When I've tried a seasonal Trader Joe's item, I try to push the review to the head of the queue so that anybody interested in trying it can actually find it while it's still in stores. But around Christmas, I bought so many seasonal treats that it took me a long time to get around to eating them all. I didn't get to these Minty Mallows until late January, by which time it was too late to find them in the stores, so I just added this post to the queue in its normal order, which means it will probably publish sometime in June. (Yeah, that's how much of a backlog of posts I have.)

Now to the thing itself: I love, love, love these. They are the best of the TJ's seasonal candies that I sampled, and overall my second-favorite seasonal item, after the top-ten-worthy Gingerbread Molasses Cookie Dough.

I have to confess to a personal idiosyncrasy: I like nearly all chocolate candies better refrigerated than room temperature. As a result, the marshmallow center of these treats was, for me, less "light and fluffy" (as advertised) and more "dense and chewy." But, oddball that I am I liked that. (Spoiler alert: Nina didn't.)

The proportions of chocolate to marshmallow to peppermint flavoring were perfect. These were so good that I ate four at my first time trying them, and it took a lot of self-control to stop there. The knowledge that I couldn't run to the store for another box anytime soon helped me put the rest back in the refrigerator--but 24 hours later the discipline broke down and they were all gone.

Is there any way to make December come faster this year?

Will I buy it again? 

If Trader Joe's does not bring these back again at the end of the year, I'm just gonna have Christmas canceled entirely.

Nina's View

It is baffling to me why I am invited to contribute to these reviews but my beloved insists on regularly stealing my thunder with his "spoiler alerts."

Two things: I have over time become increasingly less enamored of the combination of chocolate and mint (of any variety). And I would probably find these more palatable if they were indeed light and fluffy rather than tooth-cloggingly dense and sticky.

Addendum 

Now that another Christmas season has come and gone, I've had three more boxes of these, and love them more than ever. Better late than never, I'm adding them to my Top Ten list.